Abstract

The study is based on two main scientific paradigms ? cognitive and discursive. The process of social categorization by American and Ukrainian students has been focused on in a psycholinguistic experiment. Social schemes (personal schemes, action schemes, self-schemes, role schemes, function schemes) in word meanings for words denoting social objects suggested by Ukrainian (n=25, 12 female and 13 male, mean age 21,7±3,0 years, Lesya Ukrainka Eastern European National Universities, Lutsk) and American (n=25, 15 female and 10 male, mean age 22,4±3,0 years, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, USA) students were analyzed. The results of comparative analysis of word meanings based on social categories (schemes) of Ukrainian and American students show that the most frequent social categories among American students are self- schemes, which are connected with individualism of national character of western-culture people. The most frequent social categories among Ukrainian students are action schemes which express pragmatic character of Ukrainian culture. Despite of the various distributions of social schemes in Ukrainian and American students’ answers, the indifferent to culture criteria for social categorization are revealed. The results of psycholinguistic experiment show the dual cognitive and discursive character of social categorization which demonstrates the degree of culture impact on human cognition and language.